Oct 10, 2014

World Cup Final 2014


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The international IOF O-season came to its end with the World Cup Final races in Switzerland, this year around Basel area.

Three races were on the schedule - mixed sprint relay on Friday 3rd Oct., WC Middle on Saturday and WC Sprint Final race on Sunday 5th Oct.

Results, TV broadcasts, GPS and more



Sprint Relay 3rd Oct.

We got ourselves into the racing mode already on Friday with Sprint relay in Basel - Neuewelt. With the team: Míša Omová, Miloš Nykodým, Jan Petržela and me on the last leg, we took the final 8th position in quite tough competition. Good performances from all my teammates! Could have been way better from my side, loosing 45'' in a mistake is not a thing to do in a sprint relay and it's way too much time to run it up then.

The course and terrain were really nice, with clever forking and then quite many interesting routechoices. The only upsetting thing was an untoward frobidden area (purple stripes on the map) which was barely visible on the map nor it was marked in the terrain. (See the map in the link below and try to find it for yourself.) Maybe could have been solved some other way (different map symbol, tape in the terrain,..). Fortunately I had a different forking in that part of the race so I didn't have to think about this (no)routechoice.

MAP with GPS tracking



WC Middle 4th Oct.

The next day the World Cup Middle distance race was waiting for us - typical 'Mittelland' type of the forest with numerous paths and quite many green areas. While finishing the race on the outskirts of the town of Liestal, you could already feell that special atmosphere that always prevails throughout the World Cup races in Switzerland with all those fans cheering for the runners.

My goal was to make a stable race without bigger mistakes. Which may sound a bit unmotivational and 'cliché'. But right now that's what I was working on and what in reverse works for me.
(Of course, there will be other things going on during the trainign season.) So from that point of view I was satisfied with my race. No bigger problems, except for finding K19 and some useless hesitations. 24th place also meant a start place in the World Cup Spritn Final for me :)


MAP in GPSSeuranta
WoO analysis











WC Sprint Final 5th Oct.

The last international IOF event of 2014 took place in the old town of Liestal. Again the atmosphere in the arena was amazing, but more, the courses were really nice and I enjoyed it the whole way! I did quite well, unfortunately lost some time in the second part of the race while running past the stairs  that I should take on K13 and then making a wrong routechouce to K16. But still I can say I'm satisfied with 26th place with 1'45'' behind Tove Alexandersson - winner of the Sprint Final as well as the winner of the whole World Cup 2014.


MAP in GPSSeuranta
TV broadcast
WoO analysis







The races came to and end, yet I was still not going home. I planned staying in Switzerland for few more days visiting Karin & Matthias Leonhardt in Winterthur. We had great time visiting the city, as well as the city fo Bern and Zürich, running in the mountains near Interlaken and making a run trip to Schnebelhorn (the highest mountain of Kanton Zürich). The autumn is amazing in Switzerland..well it's probably amazing almost everywhere..but still :)

Thanks to everybody for making my swiss stay such a wonderfull time!
Special thank you goes to Karin & Matthias for being the best hosts I coudl wish for;
to Rahel for taking me for a run and friendly talk;
to Philipp and Michael for being the best Bern guides (otherwise I wouldn't know where to go in Bern when feeling like literally jumping off the bridge :D);
to Vanessa for showing us yummy burgers place;
and to all of you I met but forgot to mention above :)